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reporting proceedings and papers ; to the various railway, steamboat and telegraph com- 

 panies who have afforded facilities to gentlemen attending this Congi-ess. 



Dr. Warder moved that the thanks of the Congress are to the Geological Survey, 

 Ottawa, for a set of reports ; to the Commissioner of Crown Lands of the Province of 

 Quebec, for specimens of Canadian woods ; to the Hon. Mr. Joly for presiding at the 

 meetings ; to the citizens of Ottawa for their invitation to visit that city; to the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science for an invitation to accompany them to 

 Quebec ; to the ladies of America for their interest and assistance in the promotion of 

 forestry ; to the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association for an invitation to use their 

 library ; to gentlemen who have sent valuable papers to the Congress ; to Mr. James Little, 

 Montreal, the Nestor of American Forestry, for his long continued efforts on behalf of 

 American Forestry. 



Motion agreed to. 



This closed the Sessions of the American Forestry Congress in Montreal. 



Respectfully submitted, 



D. W. Beadle. 

 Wm. Saunders. 

 P. C. Dempsey. 

 Thos. Beall. 



GENERAL REPORT ON FORESTRY. 



Your several committees, having submitted such particulars as we deem of interest 

 in connection with the recent meetings of the Forestry Congress in Cincinnati and Montreal, 

 propose now to take up in a fuller manner the important subject of Forestry and dwell 

 at greater length on the more practical points connected with this momentous subject as 

 developed and presented in the valuable papers read at the meetings referred to. 



It is essential at the outset, to show as far as practicable, the present actual condition 

 of the forests of Ontario, where they are chiefly located and the proportion they bear to 

 the arable land of the Province — a paper read by Prof. Brown at the Forestry Congress 

 in Cincinnati, entitled *' Forest and Rainfall in Ontario," contains so much useful 

 information upon this subject as well as upon others, which will be touched upon hereafter, 

 that we present it entire : — 



FOREST AND RAINFALL IN ONTARIO. 



The first time I had to do with any purely scientific view of trees and climate was in 

 1867, when I secured the practical recognition of Arboriculture as a science, before the 

 *' British Association for the Advancement of Science," when also, with two others, we 

 obtained a sum of money to begin experiments in order to ascertain the real or supposed 

 influence of trees upon rainfall. A very great deal has been said and written on this 

 subject since, yet I am not aware of much that is new, or any clear light through exact 

 reported facts on the American continent, where, of course, conditions are very different, 

 and must be sought for independently of any others throughout the world. We cannot 

 take European conclusions and use them here with any measure of trust, because physical 

 conditions are just the extreme, so to speak, of those averaging in the eastern hemisphere. 

 Hence the necessity of independent experimental action — should experimental work be 

 thought of any value. 



From 1855 to 1869 my profession gave me the direct superintendence of planting 

 21,000,000 trees on two extensive estates in Scotland, along with the regular thinning and 

 -clearing of woods according to the system laid down in the work called The Forester, of 



